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Who're cheaper than Indian IT professionals? The North Koreans.

Submitted by Karthik on 3 April, 2013 - 22:31

After Eric Schmidt's recent visit to India, he travelled to other parts of Asia which included the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Much to the curiosity of those looking on from the sidelines, he spent all of four days in the "red" capital ostensibly to—just as he did in India—promote the Internet and Internet connectivity. However, a South Korean professor of North Korean Studies does not believe that this was the only item on Schmidt's agenda during his visit.

A few days ago, I heard an interesting story from professor Lim Eul-chul at the University of North Korean Studies, who is knowledgeable about the North’s internal situation. He said that the true purpose of Schmidt’s trip was to seek business opportunities that would take advantage of North Korea’s IT professionals - in other words, using the North Korean IT workforce as a potential replacement for the Indian IT workforce, which is a core planet in the global IT universe. American IT companies have outsourced a considerable amount of software development to India. But its wages have seriously climbed and lately, many Indian companies choose to create their own brands. Therefore, American IT companies are urgently seeking replacements for the Indian professionals.